FIRE

an essay

by

Gregg G Guydish

  A friend came over one day and informed me that he couldn't get his car started, and asked me to come take a look. As I had nothing pressing to do, I tagged along. We were met in the parking lot at his workplace by another friend of his, and the two immediately fell to work without the bother of my input, making me wonder why I was asked to be there in the first place. I watched them crawl over the car, a 1982 Ford Mustang that the owner, my friend, lovingly maintained, checking all the things I would have checked, until I grew bored at their lack of progress, and wandered off.

  At the time, I was visiting my friend, the owner of said Mustang, in Virginia, with some half-baked concept of jump-starting my career again. I took a few interviews, but they didn't go anywhere, and the whole thing turned into a multi-month vacation, with me riding back home on my motorcycle in November, a chilly prospect for the northeastern tier of the States.

  Anyway, I made several circuits around the building, MCI at the time, just drinking in the scenery, the sky, the trees, the bright, yellowy sunshine. And noting little details, like the fact that there had been construction on the building recently, when I found a pair of replacement lenses for a set of workman's goggles. After two or three rounds, I again approached the troubled Mustang, where my friend and his were standing a front the quiet beast, its hood held up by a prop rod, and the two scratching their heads as one.

  I inquired as to their progress and my friend lamented the lack of same. He ran down the list of things he'd checked and I let them turn over in my mind silently. His friend made a suggestion, and the two were off again on a new tangent as I considered what it takes to make a motor run.

  A simple, basic, modern mechanical engine needs three things to work: Air, Fuel, and Spark. And no matter how complicated our efforts become to regulate pollution or increase efficiency, so long as the motor uses gasoline or its derivatives to run, that basic equation will never change. Air is regulated, in this case, by a carburetor and a series of pollution control valves which are all controlled via vacuum, or the suction from the running engine. Fuel, as stated, is gasoline, and the amount of fuel delivered to the engine is regulated by the carburetor, the choke, which is usually integral to the carburetor, and the accelerator, and, again, is incumbent on the running of the engine. None of these factors come into play until the engine is actually in motion. So this leaves us with spark.

  Spark is, essentially, fire. Fire is one of the simplest of chemical reactions, and the way it works is an accurate, if not exact, example of how an internal combustion engine works. Fire needs three things, or properties, in order to exist: Air, Fuel, and Spark, just like a gasoline motor. Fire requires oxygen to burn, fuel to feed itself, and a source of ignition.

  In the very earliest days of humankind, fire was a gift from the gods. It was snatched greedily and fearfully up from the edges of a lightning strike to a tree, or the edges of a smoldering forest fire, and hoarded by those early peoples because if it went out, they could not restart it. Later, mankind leaned to make fire, then to harness it, and use it to their own ends, eventually turning it into a device that could lay waste to whole worlds. Today man can press a button, and rain fire down from near earth orbit, burning everything within a hundred-mile radius.

  But there is no nuclear fusion inside an internal combustion engine, nor is there a burning tree branch, there is an electric spark. When a person goes to start a vehicle that uses the ubiquitous internal combustion engine, he inserts a security feature called a key into a slot on the steering shaft on the inside of the vehicle and turns it, and, all things being equal, the vehicle will thrum to life. The key is actually a mechanism, a lever, if you will, to turn a switch called an ignition. Essentially, this completes an electrical circuit between the battery, a storehouse of electrical energy, and the starter, an electric motor that turns the engine long enough for the combustion process to start so the engine becomes a self-sustaining entity. At least, as long as the fuel lasts, just like any other fire you care to name.

  Unlike most modern vehicles, which have annoying, but practical, safety features like integrated parking locks, or neutral safe modes to start the car, my friends old chariot had none of these, so he did not have to do anything more than turn the key to start the car. But when he did, nothing happened. The first suspect, in my mind, was the connection to the starter, often a problem on my own vehicle. When that was ruled out I let my mind wander. It all came down to spark. If the starter, which is basically just an electric motor, wasn't turning, then there had to be an electrical problem somewhere between the ignition and the battery. As problems with ignition switches are rare, and, in this case, not curable short of major surgery, my mind opted for the Sword of Damocles option: the simplest answer is often the correct one. It was then that I finally spoke.

"Did you check the battery?"

My friend looked at me like I had just grown three more heads.

"Of course I checked the battery!" He exclaimed, laying a hand on it proprietarily.

  The battery is the home to spark, and if the little sparks can't escape to provide the fire, then the vehicle won't start. This is elementary.

"Did you check the cable?"

My friend looked annoyed, and shifted his hand to the cable, giving it a tug.

"Of course I checked the…"

  The reason he trailed off was because the battery cable came apart in his hand, neatly separating from the battery terminal with a little white cloud of corrosion. He looked shocked, and his other friend shook his head, and I simply nodded my own and walked away.

  The simplest things in life often cause us the most trouble. Was it not the thorn that brought the mighty lion to his knees, needing to ask a boon of the meekest of all creatures: the mouse, for relief? Did not David slay the giant Goliath with but a stone so tiny compared even to himself? Were the walls of Jericho not tumbled to ruin with just a few blasts of the lowly trumpet?

  And could a car not start, because it could not capture fire?

End.